Japan is a society uniquely complex. Often totally contradictory things can be said about it where both descriptions will be absolutely correct.

Japan's consumer culture also fits this split personality pattern. Foreign visitors to Japan are often enchanted by the degree of service and caring they receive when engaged in even the simplest of consumer transactions, a phenomenon often described by the Japanese themselves with the term "omotenashi." But there is another side to Japan's consumer culture as well, one that is as real as the unbelievably courteous and attentive behavior encountered everywhere.

Pricing, portion size, unavailability of products that could be easily found in countries less affluent, and other anomalies are part of the consumer experience, which simply makes Japan a challenge for foreign marketers and a complex commercial environment that is fascinating in its contradictions.

We will explore this phenomenon in this lecture.

LECTURE IN ENGLISH Kenneth Alan Grossberg was Professor of Marketing and Director of the Waseda Marketing Forum at Waseda Business School until mandatory retirement in 2016.

He has been active in international business and management education for more than forty years, much of that time spent working in Japan and the Pacific Rim.

He currently serves as an advisor to the Knowledge Center for Innovation at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and mentors Israeli startups in his capacity as a strategist and global marketing expert.

Romanian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv will host, between October 18th - November 23rd 2017, the exhibition called ” Voyages on easel” by Romanian artist Sorin Adam.

The exhibition will include approximately 20 medium-size works, oils and pastels, meant to celebrate the artistic tradition of the journey in Romanian interwar painting.

During the exhibition the public will have the opportunity to discover the painter’s personal perspective on some foreign destinations preferred by the great interwar artists, making a symbolic dialogue, spreading over the decades, between the classical generation of Romanian artists and the painters of the 21st century.

The opening of the exhibition will take place on October 18th 2017, at 18:00. Participants: Sorin Adam, visual artist, and Shlomo Katz, sculptor.

The exhibition is open to the public at the RCI Tel Aviv gallery, on 8 Shaul Hamelech Boulevard, 6th floor, from Monday to Thursday, between 10:00 and 16:00, as well as during the events organized at the institute throughout this period.

Considered one of the most prolific Romanian artists of the moment, Sorin Adam embodies in his compositions, beyond the chromatic symphony, an impressive force of landscaping, visible through the precision of the color construction and the careful structuring of composition and architectures. His teacher – painting master Vasile Grigore portrayed him as "a talented painter, with a destiny of great artist and successor of the European painters Gheorghe Petrașcu, Nicolae Dărăscu or Corneliu Baba."

Assuming this heritage, Sorin Adam proposes an exhibition commemorating the artistic tradition of the journey in Romanian interwar painting. A passionate traveler himself, Sorin Adam remakes the symbolic itineraries of the great interwar masters, from Theodor Pallady’s Britain to the Florence of Ștefan Popescu and Gheorghe Petrașcu, finishing this thematic journey with Iosif Iser's Istanbul or Henri Catargi's Morocco.

From July 26th to August 6th 2017, the International Masterclasses of Vocal Arts & Žamboki Awards, Jerusalem, took place for the third consecutive year. From its modest start in 2015, the project has grown into a multi-faceted program, enriching its students from many countries with high-quality tuition, offering them a fulfilling experience on both artistic and personal levels and, for those at the outset of a career, providing a springboard into the opera world.